Holy Night
by TheeMizKitty
Summary: It's such a holy night, isn't it? H/D


_Holy Night_

_By: TheeMizKitty_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and related characters; that credit goes to Ms. JK Rowling. _

_Song: Holy Night (italics). The song is not in order and I picked lines out to best fit the moment, so the song is sort of jumbled up because I think for the most part Draco hears it in his head. But really, just read and enjoy the story! :)_

_-o-_

It is snowing when he falls from grace. Just like the frozen tears colored white drifting down outside, he falls to the floor with an exaggerated slowness, so it seems. The letter, torn at one end in his haste, in his pain, followed his down.

From the floor, Draco Malfoy can suddenly see all he had been blind to before; from the floor, Draco Malfoy can suddenly see every pitfall in his life, every failure under the guise of a triumph, every sin under the impression of the greater good.

Clutching his shaking hands to his chest he curls in on himself, an injured snake, a little boy. The sobs send his body into spasms.

He cries the tears of forgiveness no one would ever see, sprawled out on the floor of Malfoy Manor. His sobs only echo back to him.

_-o-_

It is dark in the cavernous house now. The letter is a stark white against the black marble, against the black world. It looks like a beacon of hope.

The words upon it are sloppy from a rushed hand, cursive smeared together in chains. It is stained with a boy's tears. It is facing up.

The midnight hour reads it while the boy is away, up lost in a bottle of Firewhiskey, in a bottle of loss he stares into. It is his Christmas gift to himself, he tells himself as he downs the harsh liquor again and again and again. All he deserves for Christmas and all he needs. It is far better than the letter anyway.

It is far better than the letter.

He can still read it, even if his mind is hazy with the alcohol, with grief. The words jump behind his eyes like fireworks and explode.

'Draco', it explodes and that is the beginning. It is his father's handwriting.

'I hope you are at the Manor and I hope that you are well hidden. Keep the wards up, even thought there is little doubt that they will survive. There is no time left; our Dark Lord has fallen to the Order and Potter. Potter and the others are after us all—your mother and I have fled to Italy via untraceable Portkey. We will not come back to you. I doubt even that this Italian falsity will be enough. The Ministry's eyes are fixed on you and the Manor. Leave when and if you can—you are the Malfoy heir now, and it is all up to you. Get out of England, or accept what is coming like a Malfoy. It is your choice.

Lucius Malfoy.'

It ends abruptly as it was started, a scrawled signature all that he might ever have left of his family. A single signature and a letter informing him of the end. A single signature and his family is lost to him as soon as it ends.

He is now the Malfoy heir.

His dream, what he has worked for, what he has strived for.

And he hates it with all his being.

They are coming for him, he is sure; by now Potter is probably half way to the Manor, intent on taking his enemy. His rival, his enemy, his nemesis—with those titles the end is inevitable, his end; the Malfoy end.

He fingers his wand, an old one, a replacement as Potter had stolen his. He is likely to never get it back. Would his own wand be the one to kill him?

Or maybe, with this wand, he should just do it himself?

The Firewhiskey burns his throat and erupts in his stomach. He thinks somewhere, far off, he can hear carolers, their sweet voices harmonizing in the vocals of 'Silent Night.'

Holy Night.

Now wasn't that just the bitterest of ironies?

A tear creeps down his trembling cheek, then another and another until they are unstoppable.

In his other hand, he holds his wand.

He had learned the curse at a young age, when his father had used it on a lowly Squib. He could say it perfectly now, quickly, with a deadly precision. Two words and he wouldn't have to face his crimes. Two words and he might be sleeping, just sleeping, through the nightmare his life had become.

"_O Holy Night! The stars—"_

Two words and he wouldn't have to see the look of disgust on Potter's face, the look of loathing. He wouldn't have to gaze into those perfect green eyes and realize that he really was the villain. He still is the villain.

To Harry, he always has been.

Say it, his mind screams; say it like you mean it…

Say it, for once, with honesty instead of pain and fear and trepidation. Say it with peace.

His mouth is dry as he opens it. The wand digs into the area above his heart, and the beats of it beat throughout it.

"_**Avada Ked—"**_

"_And in his name all oppression shall cease.  
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we—"_

There is a crash, and his body crumples from the chair to the floor. The Firewhiskey spills and soaks everything, falling to the floor with an audible thump. He stares up at the ceiling, eyes glazed, eyes closing. It almost looks as though he is dead, even as his chest continues to rise and fall, rise and fall, fall, fall…

His eyes drift close and he dares not open them. If he does then he has little doubt that he will be looking into the face of Satan. Or would it be the face of Voldemort?

Would it be the face of his father?

The wand is limp in his hand, pried away by hot fingers, by a dark presence.

Or when he opens his eyes would it be his own face, staring back at him in hell?

"Malfoy," a voice says to him. It sounds painfully, miraculously familiar. But it simply could not be.

The warm hand trailed up his arm, touched his cheek in a light caress. Draco is ignited in flames. "Malfoy, can you hear me?"

Malfoy, you're alive…

Slowly he forces his eyes to open, allows the dark colors of his world to refill his vision, allows the breath to rush from his lungs. With his eyes open the warm hand on his cheek does not dissolve; the face above his is striking in its reality, from the slightly chapped lips to the scar on the forehead.

Of all the faces Draco Malfoy expected to see in his hell, none were of Harry Potter. Not of the hero, so close to him on the ground, on his knees beside his fallen form. Not the Savior, touching his cheek with a delicate hand with those green eyes—the Killing Curse—pinning him down.

Those eyes, on Draco, were as deadly as the Killing Curse itself.

They killed him in an entirely different way.

If Harry Potter is here, then he knew that it meant it was all over; he knew that he would not die by his own hand now, but locked away in a cell in Azkaban, rotting away bit by bit. Bit by little bit…

The panic set in before he could stop it. Wrenching away from Potter's touch Malfoy tries to scramble away, but Potter has all the Seeker reflexes to stop him. Tackling him from behind, Potter pins Draco's legs down so that Malfoy starts to crawl at the ground desperate, oh so desperate, to get away. His fingernails slip all across the marble.

"Stop struggling Malfoy!" Potter hisses in his ear as the blonde tries to twist his body to hit him. It is not long before Potter's bigger hands are holding Draco's smaller hands down and the Savior is straddling the condemned Death Eater. Draco closes his eyes so that he cannot see Potter, hoping that maybe with enough power he will simply disappear.

Isn't that what Draco wants after all?

"_O night! O Holy Night, O night divine!" _

"If you're going to kill me," the broken blonde whispered into the cold floor, into the air between them, "Why don't you just do it and get it over with? I won't complain."

Potter is starting to press down on him with more force, his hold tightening on Draco's pale aristocrat hands. Draco keeps his face turned down, his eyes closed, so that he cannot see what is going through those green eyes.

He does not see the turmoil.

"You want to die Malfoy?" Potter asks him quietly, so quietly that Draco barely hears him over the pounding of his dreadful heart. Within the words is a gentleness in the Savior's tone that Draco knows must be fake, must all be a part of his imaginations. It is all he ever wanted to hear, but it can never be true. Draco's shaking is uncontrollable as goes slack beneath the other boy, eyes blinking rapidly beneath his lids.

"What else is there for me Potter? Azkaban?" His voice is unnaturally high pitched at the end, the name of the prison—his fate—bouncing off the endless Manor walls. It echoes back to him with the sound of the carolers, with the sound of his heart.

"Who said you were going to Azkaban Malfoy?" Potter tells him again in a soft tone, as though he is afraid of being too loud. As if that is Draco's only fear… "Who said you would end up in Azkaban…Draco?"

He clenches his jaw at the sound of his name, that name, his _first _name from Harry Potter's lips. And he wonders then if he had ever heard it before. If some time ago between their animosities his first name had slipped from the other boy and fallen between them and if, then, it had shocked him as much as it did now. He wonders if this is the first time he has ever heard his name not drawled, not spat, not cursed but just simply spoken in a soft tone, a simple voice.

Draco wishes he could forget it, that sound. It fills him with a feeling similar to the Killing Curse, a feeling so consuming that he feels as though he will explode from it.

"What's left for me?" he snarls, trying again to get away from Potter. "What's left of me for me damn you!" He fights as Potter's hands grow firmer and start to pull at him, trying to get him to turn beneath him to face him, to face his fate. Draco knows he cannot face him if he has any hope of fighting his own demise.

"I'm a Death Eater Potter! Azkaban is the only place for fools like me! Personally I'd rather not be a bloody fool, I'd rather be dead!"

In his mind, in his racing heart, there is an entirely different answer, the answer of Draco, not of Malfoy. _I'd rather be dead before spending another day, another hour, another second knowing that you hate me. Knowing that I am your enemy. Please, don't make me…_

"_Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices!—"_

"Malfoy!" Potter yells in his ear as he catches a pale wrist, squeezing it tightly. Draco only starts to struggle harder. "Malfoy! Draco, stop and listen to me! I know that it looks like Azkaban is going to be your fate but—but it doesn't have to be! Death doesn't have to be a choice either—"

Draco no longer has the will to hold any false hopes, any fancy delusions. Potter's words are like glass, cutting into him, severing his arteries so that he is left to bleed out. It is just like it was with his father, like the poison Lucius has always fed him, over and over and over again, until it all but seeped back out of him. All those words, all those lies—the 'greatness' of the Dark Lord, the good he is doing to the world.

All Draco had ever seen was a madman whose body count exceeded his power. How had he seen that too late?

"Death is the only thing I have now," he whispers harshly, tears falling to the floor below him through his eyelids. He wonders if Potter notices his tears and then just doesn't care if he does or not. Maybe now, with tears slipping down his cheeks, Potter can try to see him as more than a killer.

Maybe…

"Azkaban's the only place that will accept someone like me. And I can't go there Potter, I-I can't! Not when I can't even accept what I've done, I can't even fucking live with what I've done! Merlin, no one will help me, not when no one wants me. Who wants to help a Death Eater? Fuck, I don't even want myself! I don't even fucking want help!"

Harry Potter pushes him around in his arms then with a viciousness that leaves Draco Malfoy temporarily startled. Somehow through the tears blinding his vision, somehow through the shroud of his guilt and grief, he meets those green eyes. They burn at him, swirl with things he does not want to know.

And he thinks that finally this is the end.

"_His power and glory ever more proclaim!—"_

"Who the hell are you?" Potter demands of him. His grip on Draco's frail body is almost brutal, but the blonde can barely feel it anyway. He is going completely numb and it is only Potter's eyes that he feels now, drilling into him. "Where the fuck is the Malfoy that I know? He would never fucking say that about himself!"

Draco's mouth starts to open and his lips fall into place—half a smile, half a grimace. He tastes blood on his lips, the Malfoy blood and he wants to spit it out. "Draco Malfoy's fallen Harry Potter," he tells him calmly, "I think he fell a long time ago. Aren't you happy that he's gone? He fell a long time ago."

So long ago that Draco can no longer remember when it had happened, but he knows why. He knows why.

Potter's eyes are still like fire, even as he starts to gentle his grip. "Draco," he whispers, and for a second it is almost like he can see into Draco's shattered soul. Just a second, just a moment, and it is enough. "Draco—"

So soft, so slow, so harmful. Potter starts to pull him closer, still straddling him, until Draco's trembling form is pressed into his own. He can hear Potter's heart in the silence and, somehow, it matches his own.

"I came to you alone," Potter bends his head, whispers into his ear. Draco closes his eyes at the hot breath, at the feeling of being held. He does not understand it, but he is too weak to do anything but surrender. "I wanted to be the one to talk to you, because I… I didn't want you to get hurt. I won't let you get hurt, not by yourself and certainly not by others. They did want to take you to Azkaban but I wouldn't let them. Draco…I told them that I'd take care of you?"

Could Potter sense the tentative hope that he is making an effort to plant in his heart? Potter forges ahead as the heart under his ear beats stronger and stronger. Or is that his own?

"And I will take care of you Draco—I didn't lie. I know that you're probably thinking that I've lost my mind and…maybe I have but I know what I'm doing, even if I am mad. You aren't like the others Draco—I know you're not, and you know you're not. I saw your remorse when Dumbledore died and I see that same remorse now." Gently Potter's hand, so warm and rough, slips under his chin, lifts his face up to his own. Draco can't seem to catch his breath. "I saw the way you always hesitated in the dark deeds you had to perform; you knew that it was wrong, and you always closed your eyes and wished yourself dead. You regret everything that you've done, don't you?"

Potter's arms no longer hold him down, but hold him up, pressed into his body. They are the arms that hold him together. Draco's tears are leaking through the Savior's shirt into the battle wounds he surely has, over his heart. Draco's voice is all the blonde has left.

"I regret everything in my life," he cried into Potter's shirt, over Potter's heart. "Every fucking thing. From being a Death Eater, to listening to my father, to believing him, to—" His tear filled eyes meet the green ones so close to his own and they lock. They can no longer unlock. "I regret making you my enemy. You never deserved my cruelty and I…oh Merlin I'm so sorry, but it's too late to be forgiven, isn't it? I can't forgive myself, and I can't live with the knowledge that I was one of them, that I was one who tortured and killed and—"

He breaks off, breathless, eyes wide and oh so dark. Outside the carolers are nearing the end of their song. They have been singing it over and over and over again, but he knows now that this is the end; he knows now that they are almost done.

"How can I be forgiven?" he rasps into Potter's throat as he collapses, body shattering like his mind until there is little left.

Potter catches him. And for the first time, Draco lets him. Potter gathers him to his chest like a newborn, cradling him in a cocoon of warmth and—Draco dares to believe—in safety. He is safe as hands stroke his sides, as Potter's face turns into his hair. Hearts racing together, one too fast, one too slow, yet still in unison.

"I forgive you," Potter whispers against him. "I forgive you Draco Malfoy, because you don't deserve this, because you're not evil, because I can feel you, I can see you, and this suffering must end. Please let my forgiveness be enough."

And perhaps it is.

One final sung note and Draco looks up through clearing eyes. Potter's smile is the sunrise; it is the beginning of something entirely new. It dries the tears on Draco's face and lifts his head, the green of Potter's eyes blinding him to all else.

"_A thrill of hope and the weary world rejoices—"_

Maybe Draco Malfoy was a villain; maybe that night, he did deserve to die.

Or perhaps he did.

Perhaps as Harry Potter leaned into him, as the warm lips covered his own, Draco Malfoy died right then, dissolving like the snow as soon as the darkness ended.

And Draco Malfoy became someone new.

"_For yonder breaks and new and glorious morn."_


End file.
